This article was updated on Thursday, Dec. 19 to include a response from Finance Canada.

The prime minister has tasked Finance Minister Bill Morneau to finish a report on a list of federal fossil fuel subsidies, although environmentalists worry that efforts to eventually phase out such measures are hitting roadblocks.

Morneau’s mandate letter, released last Friday, said he is tasked with finalizing a report “which will include a list of federal fossil fuel subsidies, including the description of the subsidies, annual costs and analysis of the subsidies.”

Canada had agreed to produce an inventory of “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies before submitting it to Argentina for a joint peer review as part of a June 2018 G20 commitment.

While there was never a deadline attached to the peer review, ones conducted by other countries have taken roughly 12 to 18 months.

Last spring, the federal environment commissioner criticized the finance and environment ministries for failing to adequately define what constitutes an inefficient subsidy, which is needed in order to produce a proper inventory. Canada has committed to phasing out such subsides before 2025.

Julia Levin, climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence, said she was happy to see the project included in Morneau’s mandate letter, but is worried that it’s running late.

“I’m glad to see this, because I hadn’t seen this government in the last couple years put any urgency towards this,” she said. “(But) we’re at 18 months now, and they haven’t even done their self-review.”

Levin recently told The Canadian Press that government officials told her they believe the peer-review process likely won’t be finished until sometime in 2021.

She told iPolitics she was previously told that the government self-review to be later submitted to Argentina would be complete by winter 2020.

“That’s when I do expect something to be made, at least available to targeted stakeholders,” Levin said, cautioning that the government only promised to show the public the final peer-reviewed report.

In a statement provided on Thursday, Finance Canada spokesperson Anna Arneson said work on the self-review is “ongoing and on track.” She added that the report will also include “any potential plans to reform subsidies.”

In 2016, the Trudeau government set a target year of 2025 to phase out inefficient subsidies. A commitment for ending such subsidies was first agreed to by Canada in 2009 with other G20 countries.

Morneau’s 2015 mandate letter had said he was to “work with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to fulfil our G20 commitment and phase out subsidies for the fossil fuel industry over the medium-term.”

This time, there is no mention of the 2025 goal in either Morneau’s or Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s mandate letters.

Vanessa Corkal, an energy and climate change policy analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said she was glad to see the peer review mentioned, but wanted a timeline referenced.

“Climate change, more generally, is a very strong theme across the mandate letters this year, so that’s a good thing,” she said. “The downside is that there isn’t a clear timeline in that mandate letter for the completion of their review.”

Corkal said Ottawa should by now have a proper definition for what constitutes inefficient fossil fuel measures.

The department had disagreed with Gelfand’s recommendation, saying the term inefficient could not be narrowed to simple criteria, given the breadth of issues that need to be considered.

Levin said she’s particularly worried federal officials will try to work around declaring measures for phase-out.

“My concern is mostly that they will find loopholes, so that they will produce these reports and find that there’s no work that needs to be done,” she said.

Environment Canada had also conducted its own review of non-tax measures that could be considered a subsidy prior to Gelfand’s report. It found four measures, but none were deemed inefficient.

In the wake of her findings, the department announced it would consult the public on what constitutes an inefficient subsidy. The results will be released once the peer-review is finalized with Argentina.

Environmental Defence says federal support for fossil fuel sectors includes tax subsidies, non-tax spending, as well as loans, writeoffs and exemptions, all totalling into the billions of dollars. To them, the purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is considered a subsidy.

Corkal said 2020 will be an especially critical year given that countries, including Canada, will be submitting their revised contributions to the Paris agreement.

“I don’t think they’re ignoring the issue,” she said. “But I don’t know if there’s enough understanding across all governments, Canada included, of how useful a tool subsidy reform can be.”